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3D XPoint does away with the need to use the transistors at the heart of Nand chips.
Nand works by moving electrons back and forth to an isolated part of the transistors known as their "floating gates" to represent the ones and zeros of binary code.
An issue with this technique is that it cannot rewrite single bits of data at a time. Instead, larger blocks of information have to be wiped and then rewritten to incorporate the changes.
"It's kind of like a parking lot where you want to move one of the cars, but they are all jammed in," Intel executive Rob Crooke says.
"So, you have to shuffle them all around to get one new one in there."
By contrast, 3D XPoint works by changing the properties of the material that makes up its memory cells to either having a high resistance to electricity to represent a one or a low resistance to represent a zero.
The advantage is that each memory cell can be addressed individually, radically speeding things up.
An added benefit is that it should last hundreds of times longer than Nand before becoming unreliable.
Solid state drives - and even slower hard disks - will remain significantly cheaper than 3D XPoint for some time to come, so it makes sense to continue using them to store most files.
The suggestion is the new technology will normally be used instead as an intermediary step.
Rather than copy data directly from the slower types of storage into RAM, programs will anticipate what data is likely to be needed and then transfer it in advance to the 3D XPoint.
RAM's speed advantage over traditional storage has long made it the chip of choice to funnel data directly into processors.
However, because it is relatively expensive to produce, computer makers tend to restrict how much they include.
Each megabyte of 3D Xpoint will certainly be significantly cheaper than the equivalent amount of RAM. And the new technology has the added advantage of being non-volatile, meaning it does not "forget" information when the power is switched off.
But, unfortunately it is still not quite as fast as RAM, and some - but not all - applications need the extra speed the older tech provides.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33675734
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Intel/Micron 3D X-Point (cross-point) non volatile memory
Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by alexhawker, Jul 28, 2015.